For those unfamiliar with Alnico, it is a kind of magnet used to make speakers and pickups. Most modern bass speakers are made from ceramic, which can sound lifeless and stale, and when pushed hard go from clean to unpleasant harsh distortion very quickly.

With Alnico, the speaker gradually distorts in a warm and pleasant way as you turn up the amp's volume. They are much more pleasant to the ear.

If you want these speakers to be produced, please go to the bottom of this Weber Speaker suggestion page linked below and request the speakers with the link above:

For those unfamiliar with Alnico, it is a kind of magnet used to make speakers and pickups. Most modern bass speakers are made from ceramic, which can sound lifeless and stale, and when pushed hard go from clean to unpleasant harsh distortion very quickly.

For those unfamiliar with bass speakers and who get most of their knowledge from internet myth, ceramic is NOT responsible for making some speakers sound lifeless and stale, nor does it have anything to do with clean to unpleasant harsh distortion. I know where people get this stuff, but lord, please don't propagate it. It displays a complete lack of understanding of speaker design. I'd be really interested to hear what you have to say about neodymium magnet speakers or the variable electromagnet-based Fluxtone speakers.

Frankly, I don't care if Weber produces a 10" bass speaker in Alnico or not. If I want 10's, I'll pick up one of the 2x10 cabs that feature Eminence 3010LFs and a tweeter.

I'm carrying around bass cabinets that have a single 15" Eminence 3015LF low frequency driver, a very high power Faital 5" mids driver and a 1" tweeter that produce a wider range of clean sound including lower lows and higher volume (without farting out) in a much flatter, non-distorting, cleaner response. Look up the fEARful 15/6/1 and/or the fEARless F115. For that matter, check out the TC115 from Audiokinesis as well.

These are ALL neodymium-based speakers and the individual cabinets have little issue with handling up to 900W each (1500W for the pair), have great sensitivity and dispersion and they weigh SO much less (typically 45 pounds done in birch ply) and are so much more compact than the standard 4x10 and 8x10 cabs manufacturers have on the market today.

Here's what you don't know. Flux is flux. Speakers with differences in magnet structure usually have other differences going on as well. As Fluxtone has confirmed, most of the "sound" of a speaker type is in the moving parts; the voice coil, the surround, the cone material and shape. They can replace the ceramic or Alnico structure on the back of a speaker with a variable electromagnet and retain the basic "sound" of a guitar speaker. IOW, a Fluxtone electromagnet on the back of a Vintage 30 basket and cone will give you Vintage 30 characteristics, except that you can now control the efficiency of the magnet, dropping the volume of that speaker up to 25 dB.

But there's more. You're talking about bass speakers as if they were guitar speakers. The whole Alnico vs. Ceramic business is (as one poster put it) "marketing spew" for the gullible guitar crowd. Moreover, most bass players couldn't care beans about "smoothness moving into distortion" because the last thing they want from their speakers is distortion.

Fact is, most guitar players don't want speaker distortion, either -- most of the sound of a modern tube amp comes first from the gain structure of the preamp (12AX7) tubes. Then, if the amp is really pushed hard, there may be some power amp tube distortion (with the note that it really shortens the life of the power tubes and can produce some seriously unacceptable volume levels), and finally there can be speaker distortion, a condition that really only gets experimented with in recording studios and then only by folks who can afford to have their speakers reconed frequently, since speakers pushed to that level often lose their voice coils due to heat warpage.

The main concerns of bass speakers have to do with cone travel (XMax) and power handling, and Alnico magnets are simply not optimal for bass speakers, period. Current top-end bass speakers are neodymium-based and relatively expensive. You should know that you rarely find high-end bass speakers in the standard manufactured cabinets that show up in Guitar Centers.

As you've already found when you posted this same thread over at TalkBass, the technically proficient bass players have no interest in a 10" Alnico bass speaker from Weber. And they've already dismissed your presumptions regarding ceramic vs alnico as irrelevant.

While you're AT TalkBass, you might PM Duke LeJeune and greenboy (Dave Green), who are two of the folks at the forefront of modern bass speaker cabinet design, and see what speaker types they choose and why. You're not going to find much support for Alnico speakers among the best of the top-end manufacturers (Bergantino, etc.), either.

Most speakers these days (including most guitar speakers) have Ferrite (ceramic) magnet structures.

I have Celestion G10 Golds (Alnico) in an open-back 4x10 (decidedly non-bass), and I have some old Altec Lansing 418's (15") that have big old Alnico magnets hung off the back (more designed for guitar) . I've also got Altec 421's (also 15") which weigh about 22 lbs each, that have 17.5 lb Ferrite magnet structures. The latter have amazing response (35-4000Hz) and are usually used in ported bass cabinets. Outstanding 102 dB SPL using a 600-2400Hz sweep, 100 dB SPL using a 50-500Hz sweep (note that sensitivity ratings on most speakers varies with frequency and with measuring parameters). OTOH, these are only rated for about 100W.

By contrast, the Eminence Kappalite 3015LF (you'll find it in Eminence's Pro Audio speakers), which is showing up in higher end two- and three-way speaker systems (usually with a high-power mids driver and a tweeter) like the fEARless F115, the Avatar TB 153 and others, has a 9.6mm Xmax (most guitar speakers have perhaps 0.8mm - 1mm, most 18" subwoofers support 1/4" - 1/2" excursion) can move prodigious air. Magnet weight is 11 oz, total weight 8.6 lbs. These also have power handling of 450W - 900W and a sensitivity of 98.6 dB (measured across the entire frequency range of 40-1500Hz in open air). In a properly sized and ported cabinet and fed 900W, this thing will simply NOT fart out and will produce huge output.

Bass is about having a LOT of Gauss and the ability to move a LOT of air cleanly. Alnico magnets simply aren't the best choice here.

Most speakers these days (including most guitar speakers) have Ferrite (ceramic) magnet structures.

I have Celestion G10 Golds (Alnico) in an open-back 4x10 (decidedly non-bass), and I have some old Altec Lansing 418's (15") that have big old Alnico magnets hung off the back (more designed for guitar) . I've also got Altec 421's (also 15") which weigh about 22 lbs each, that have 17.5 lb Ferrite magnet structures. The latter have amazing response (35-4000Hz) and are usually used in ported bass cabinets. Outstanding 102 dB SPL using a 600-2400Hz sweep, 100 dB SPL using a 50-500Hz sweep (note that sensitivity ratings on most speakers varies with frequency and with measuring parameters). OTOH, these are only rated for about 100W.

By contrast, the Eminence Kappalite 3015LF (you'll find it in Eminence's Pro Audio speakers), which is showing up in higher end two- and three-way speaker systems (usually with a high-power mids driver and a tweeter) like the fEARless F115, the Avatar TB 153 and others, has a 9.6mm Xmax (most guitar speakers have perhaps 0.8mm - 1mm, most 18" subwoofers support 1/4" - 1/2" excursion) can move prodigious air. Magnet weight is 11 oz, total weight 8.6 lbs. These also have power handling of 450W - 900W and a sensitivity of 98.6 dB (measured across the entire frequency range of 40-1500Hz in open air). In a properly sized and ported cabinet and fed 900W, this thing will simply NOT fart out and will produce huge output.

Bass is about having a LOT of Gauss and the ability to move a LOT of air cleanly. Alnico magnets simply aren't the best choice here.

i thought so.
my experience with hifi alnico speakers was that they were not that great at producing low end thump.
also they don't have high power handling which is really needed when playing bass.
100W will crap out on you on the first song with a drummer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountain2012

Oh, wow. Looks like they took down the link. I am told that they still intend to produce these speakers, so please click the second link in my origianl post and ask they make alnico bass speakers.

why double threading?
it is almost as you are a spammeR!!!!!
spammer!!!